Green Day Working Class Hero

Green Day has released a music video for “Working Class Hero” as part of the Instant Karma project. The politically-charged song by John Lennon is used to highlight the plight of people caught in the genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan. Green Day’s music appears alongside emotional accounts of horror from survivors.

Instant Karma: The Campaign To Save Darfur is Amnesty International’s new Make Some Noise campaign. In the spirit of peace high profile artists such as Green Day, U2, Black Eyed Peas, Snow Patrol, Postal Service, Regina Spektor and more are coming together in one tribute album covering songs by John Lennon. Proceeds from this album go to aid Amnesty International in the fight to Save Darfur, Sudan.

Proceeds from your purchase of the video in iTunes will also go towards the fight. For more info on the album and the cause go to www.instantkarma.org. To raise even more money for Darfur, Green Day have designed a limited-edition “Working Class Hero” t-shirt available soon at Hard Rock Cafe.

Click on the image below to play the video in YouTube

The music video includes accounts from survivors of the Darfur conflict. One talks about seeing his father killed in front of his eyes. They talk about perpetrators raping women “What they r doing at this time is existing. We need peace.” The refugees plea for UN peacekeepers to be sent to protect civilians, and for people everywhere to speak up for the people of Darfur.

Credits

The Green Day Working Class Hero music video was directed by Samuel Bayer via HSI Productions, commissioned by WarnerBros Records. WarnerBros released released raw footage from the music on YouTube in the week before the video was launched on MTV and YouTube.

Bayer and team filmed the video in black and white, trying to keep the spirit of John Lennon’s 1968 sit in footage. Read some of the background to the making of the video at Popwatch.

Lyrics for Working Class Hero

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool,
Till you’re so f**king crazy you can’t follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you’re so clever and classless and free,
But you’re still f**king peasants as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

Click on the image below to play the John Lennon music video for Working Class Hero

There’s room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like all the folks on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.

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